Henry Ford: A Great Innovator

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Ford - The Master Craftsman of Automobile By the end of 1903, the Ford Co. had 125 employees and had sold 1,708 cars in three different models. These automobiles were fitted with two cylinders and had a capacity of 8 HP. Ford and his team of engineers developed 19 models during the period 1903-1908 and named them each after a letter of the alphabet from 'Model A' to 'Model S.' During the same period, Ford himself introduced five models - Models A, B, C, F and K. Occasionally, the company developed multiple models at the same time. For example, between 1904-05, Ford manufactured the 'Model C Runabout' (priced at $800), the 'Model F Touring Car' (priced at $1,000), and the 'Model B' (priced at $2,000). However, some of these models were experimental and were not released to the public. In 1906, Ford introduced 'Model N,' a new, economical model with a low profit margin. The 'Model N' - a small four-cylinder driven car, priced at $500 - went on to become popular.

In the winter of 1906, with the assistance of some of his colleagues, Ford began work on Model T. He worked for two years in developing the design and plan of Model T. He conducted thorough research on materials required to build the car, sometimes in an unorthodox fashion. After a car race in Florida, Ford scrutinized the wreck of a crashed French car and observed that many of its parts weighed much less than the usual steel. Ford's team at Piquette Avenue concluded that the French were using a type of vanadium¹⁸ alloy. This was something the Americans did not know to manufacture. Ford found that while the finest of steel alloys utilized by US auto-manufacturers offered a tenacity of only 60,000 ductile pounds, vanadium steel (though much lighter than US steel) offered a tenacity of 170,000 ductile pounds. Ford hired a metallurgist and got a steady supply of vanadium from a steel mill in the US, which made it possible for the Ford Co. to switch to using vanadium steel for its new Model T. This made Ford Co. the only manufacturer to use vanadium in the world apart from French racing cars during that time.

Assembly-Line - A'Paradigm Shift' in Automobile Manufacturing

The Ford Co. started its car manufacturing operations using the craft production system in 1903. Under this system, all cars were made up of the basic chassis and engine, but the body was designed to suit individual tastes. In this system, the manufacturing costs were high and did not decline with increase in volumes. When the Ford Co. began operations, assembly stands on which a whole car was assembled usually by one fitter (assembler) were used. Before 1908, a Ford worker assembled a large part of a car before proceeding to the next car. The fitters performed the same set of activities repetitively at their fixed assembly stands. Workers procured the necessary parts, filed them, so that they would fit and then bolted them in at the appropriate place. Later, to increase the efficiency of the process, each workstation was supplied with the required parts; this allowed the assemblers to remain at a given place throughout the day.

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18] A bright white, soft, ductile metallic element found in several minerals (notably vanadinite and carnotite), having good structural strength and used in rust-resistant high-speed tools, as a carbon stabilizer in some steels, as a titanium-steel bonding agent, and as a catalyst.

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